This Episode of Marketing 24-7, will show you how to use your life scars to emerge as a winner and not let them define you.
When I was 5 years old, I was out playing in the backyard of our home at Hamilton Hill, my mother asked me if I’d go and deliver a cake to the old people around the corner Mr. And Mrs. Dowel. Since I was the perfect son, I said yes to my mother and off I trotted with the cake in my hand. But the moment when the gate rattled at the Dowels, I knew I was in strife. A ferocious-looking dog suddenly attacked me. It bit me right through my trousers and there was blood everywhere. I was so terrified, it was a very traumatic experience.
So traumatic that the vicious scarring dog was named a Chihuahua. You may laugh at this experience but trust me, that little four-legged monster scarred me. It was my first scar that made me vow that I would never have a dog for the rest of my life.
My first scar—or what I call a Battle scar.
Then at 13 years of age, I was training karate in the local dojo. My instructor was a third dan black belt, Mr Purvis. He took a liking to me and he kept extending my training, making it more and more precarious. One Saturday afternoon, I mistakenly stepped left when I should’ve stepped to the right. My leg got hit by a long cold steel bladed knife that plunged deep into my left thigh, blood immediately soaked my white karate suit.
That was my second scar and from then on I vowed that I would never get into a fight with a knife-wielding bandit with only my bare hands.
At 15 years of age in high school, I took a liking to a young girl. To protect her identity, I’ll refer to her as Miss Goldilocks. She and I got on famously, we walked to school and back home together every day. For the first time in my life, I shared some of my innermost secrets. But after a few weeks, Ms. Goldilocks no longer walked with me since she was being driven to school and back by a year 12 boy who had a license and a car. So walking with me all of a sudden seemed passé.
That was my third scar, albeit the first scar to my heart and I vowed I’d never share my innermost secrets with anyone else.
My fourth scar happened when I was 23 years of age. I was a school teacher and earning a princely sum of $12,190 before taxes but I was coerced to invest $5,000 into a company called Max Resources. Max Resources specialised in chicken manure, otherwise known as chicken shit. I was over the moon thinking that it was a great investment. I mean, what could go wrong? But needless to say, not long after I invested my $5,000, it went straight down the toilet.
This fourth scar was my first scar in business and I vowed that I would never invest in something I didn’t know a lot about again.
As you’ve probably gathered by now, every scar that my body, heart, mind, and soul has inflicted upon it throughout the early years of my life has resulted in me making vows. And for a long time, I kept those vows. I probably missed out on a lot of life’s pleasures by allowing those scars, and the vows, to define me.
I am a lot older now and I’ve collected a bucket load of extra scars but what I’ve found is it’s better to share the scars rather than making them life-defining vows. Just like what I’m doing now, it will not only help me but they help other people as well. I’ve learned that every time I share my scars, people reflect on the scars that they’ve received in their life and they too wonder whether the scars have restricted the progress in their lives!
I’ve come to realise is that if you hide your scars or become afraid of getting scars then you’re not making the most out of your life. Most people make themselves invisible as they go about their day in one way or another. They hide their scars, talents, even abilities by hiding their skills. Tons of people are afraid to put themselves out there because somebody might ridicule them or criticise them. Or worst still scar them.
But guess what?
All the champions, winners, all the people who’ve achieved the highest levels in life have gathered scars along the way. Every entrepreneur who has made it has to get over the hurt, get over the scars, and move forward to success.
Nowadays, I actually welcome people to criticise me. So if you want to criticise me, go ahead. If you want to dig through my email and find something strange about me, then go ahead. You want to make something up about me, whether if it’s true or not? Go ahead because I’m intending to use scars to move forward.
Understand that when you want to live your life to the fullest, you have to be fearless and you have to take on the scars. You will have people that will criticise you, condemn you, but when you are hurt, be glad because if nobody’s doing any of that you are having zero effect on the world. So be glad about the criticisms and the scars.
Most people are scared they don’t want to show their scars, or they don’t want anyone to know that they have scars. They’re afraid.
You might be like them, or you might not. But please, don’t be like most people, be different. Not everybody will criticise in fact, many people are going to like you and your simple mission is just to find them.
And when this gets down to entrepreneurial endeavors, your mission is even simpler.
It is to find the people that gravitate towards you; and give them so much value, that they will give you money for finding them.
Do that. Entrepreneurial endeavors become a lot simpler.
The biggest vow that I made when I was a kid, was way back when I was five, it was to never have a dog in my life. But the irony of life is that one of the happiest things I have in my life is my dog, Romeo.
Why did I wait so long?
